White Death. The very mention of those two words was enough to strike fear into the hearts of Red Army soldiers who crossed the Soviet Union’s border with Finland during the Winter War of 1939, a brief but brutal conflict that stained the frosted pine forests with the blood of 200,000 Russians.
For this was the alias of Simo Hayha, one of the most prolific marksmen in military history.
Shrouded in the white, hooded snowsuit that gave him his sinister soubriquet, this ace Finnish sniper, who had honed his craft by hunting animals in the woods where he was raised, would crouch in crevices, or holes he dug in the thick snow. That he was just 5 ft 2 in tall made it easier for him to hide.
As the hours ticked by, he lay stock-still, eating only bits of bread and cubes of sugar to avoid unnecessary movement. The strips of newspaper with which he padded his flimsy cotton suit provided scant protection in temperatures of -40c.
Simo Hayha is believed to have killed more than 500 men…
